Schiele, Egon

Austrian
expressionist
artist
Egon Leo Adolf Schiele, b. June 12, 1890,
d. Oct. 31, 1918, was at odds with art critics and society for most of his
brief life.
Even more than
Gustav Klimt,
Schiele made eroticism one of his major
themes and was briefly imprisoned for obscenity in 1912. His treatment of
the nude figure suggests a lonely, tormented spirit haunted rather than
fulfilled by sexuality. At first strongly influenced by Klimt, whom he met
in 1907, Schiele soon achieved an independent anticlassical style wherein his
jagged lines arose more from psychological and spiritual feeling than from
aesthetic considerations. He painted a number of outstanding portraits, such
as that of his father-in-law,
Johann Harms (1916; Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York City), and a series of unflinching and disquieting
self-portraits. Late works such as
The Family (1918; Oesterreichische
Galerie, Vienna) reveal a newfound sense of security.

Austrian Expressionism

The Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918) died when
he was only 28 and we do not really know whether he would have developed
from the self-pitying adolescent angst that was the main theme of his work.
Self-Portrait (1910; 110 x 35.5 cm (43 x 14 1/4 in)),
however, is a most moving theme in itself: a pathetic and yet powerful
exposure of Schiele's vulnerability. He is mere skin and bone, not yet
fully there as a person. He has outlined his body with a glowing line
of white to indicate to us both his sense of imprisonment and his
limitations: notice how his arm disappears almost at the elbow-- yet
paradoxically it also suggests growth and potential. He is an unhappy,
scrawny youth, the wild and exaggerated expanse of pubic hair perhaps
indicating the center of his unhappiness. It may seem too individualistic
a view, yet in his hysterical way he is expressing the fears and doubts
of many young people. He is wonderful, unsettling, and strangely innocent.